Discussion

peeling boiled eggs?

Hello Everyone,I need some advice on the best way to peel hard boiled eggs?I made some hard boiled eggs to make scotch eggs and when I try removing the shells, part of my egg always seem to stick and break off. I even bought some eggs and let them sit in the fridge for a week before cooking them, since I heard older eggs peel better. That did not help. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

I am steaming mine now. I steam them in a pot (with a cheapo metal basket ) with the lid on for about 14 minutes, then put them in ice water. The shells just fall off and there is a bright yellow yolk with no grey ring. Perfection.

Yep me, too. Since reading this thread however long ago that was I am no longer shy of doing hard boiled egg dishes. I follow the instructions given in the thread and have perfect yellow yolked easy to peel eggs every time. I only ever steam hard boiled eggs now.

I just tried steaming them for the first time yesterday and they peeled beautifully. The yolks did have a bit of grey, but that was my fault, I was in the middle of something when the timer went off, and let them go about 5 minutes too long. I used a bamboo steamer over a stainless steel pot, with the water going at a strong boil the entire time. This was my first try at steaming, but I'll definitely be using this method again.

sedimental and others, thank you for sharing you switched to steam. Because of reading the comments here and in your link to the other CHOW thread decided to try to steam some eggs. As an experiment, I poked a hole in the big end of some older eggs with a plastic thumb tack. Then steamed nine eggs today for 13 minutes (with a good boil the whole time with steam coming out of lid). Once cooked with the lid on my steamer I lightly shook them to break all the shells (thinking to get the cold water under shells immediately after cooking). Then immediately put eggs with cracked shells in a bowl of ice water. As soon as cool enough to handle pealed each and put back into the bowl of ice water. They were the easiest eggs I ever recall peeling. Each shell quickly came off in one piece. Cooked perfectly with no green line inside on the yolk. Here are a couple pictures of my steamed 'hard boiled' eggs today:

And I never poke a hole in them. So, try it w/o doing that and see if it still works for you. It does for me. One less step! And it seems to make NO difference whether the eggs are fresh or old. They all have worked the same for me.